'Saturday Night Live' stops joking about casting woes

Published 4:31 pm, Thursday, December 26, 2013

After coming under intense criticism for its lack of onstage diversity, "Saturday Night Live" is poised to hire its first black female cast member since Maya Rudolph left the show in 2007. Lorne Michaels, the executive producer, told The New York Times that "SNL" recently held special auditions and that one or two black women would most likely join the cast in January — a good thing for balance and for the show's relevance.

Over nearly four decades, "SNL" has had only three black female repertory players. One of the stars, Kenan Thompson, did the program no favors when he explained in October that "in auditions, they just never find ones that are ready."

The show initially handled the media storm with a skit in which guest host Kerry Washington played Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey and Beyonce all at once, frequently running offstage to change costume. An on-screen message explained, "We made these requests only because Ms. Washington is an actress of considerable range and talent and also because 'SNL' does not currently have a black woman in the cast."

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It was a clever bit of self-mockery, but it served mostly to prove that jokes about diversity are not enough. "SNL" is known for newsy imitations and yet deep into President Barack Obama's second term, it employs no one obviously suited to depict his wife, or a world-famous talk show host, or an immensely popular singer.

Michaels said it would be "100 percent good for the show to have an African-American woman." That's true in artistic terms, and it also makes financial sense. Researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, found recently that cable shows with ethnically diverse casts and writers tended to have higher ratings.